VANCOUVER -- The vast majority of all first-time home buyers in B.C. now need help from the bank of mom and dad to get into the real estate market, a new survey has found.
According to a December survey of 193 B.C. notaries, 90 per cent said their first-time buyer clients got financial help from their family.
That's up from a similar survey in 2015, when B.C. notaries said just 70 per cent of first-time homebuyers needed help.
In the 2019 survey, notaries said 59 per cent of their first-time buyer clients got less than 25 per cent of the down payment from their parents, while 33 per cent said their clients got more than 25 per cent. Eight per cent got more than 50 per cent of the down payment from their parents.
The percentage of the down payment that parents are giving is down from 2015, when 19 per cent of first-time buyers got more than 50 per cent of their down payment from mom and dad.
Forty per cent of notaries surveyed said they'd seen a decrease in first-time home buyers in 2019, while 25 per cent said there had been an increase.
The most affordable region in B.C. appears to be the northern part of the province, where just 20 per cent of notaries said housing was unaffordable. Not surprisingly, 85 per cent of notaries in the Greater Vancouver area said housing affordability is an issue.
Notaries across the province pegged tighter mortgage restrictions, such as a federally-imposed stress test, as the biggest factor impacting housing affordability.
